Subject: Medieval cookbooks

From: [email-masked] (Robin Carroll-Mann)
Date: 2 Mar 1994 07:23:24 GMT

Would the person who emailed me for a list of cookbooks please re-send the
request?  I'm afraid I managed to delete your message.  Sorry.

Robin

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From: [email-masked] (Edward Jannoo)
Date: 2 Mar 1994 08:52:07 GMT

>request?  I'm afraid I managed to delete your message.  Sorry.

Perhaps you could post the list to this Newsgroup? That way anybody who is
interested can use the information. (Otherwise, can I have a copy too?)

Ed Jannoo - [email-masked] - BNR doesn't necessarily share the views
                               that I express herein.

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From: [email-masked] (Wendy Hyers)
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 15:41:46 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>interested can use the information. (Otherwise, can I have a copy too?)
Um......me too? :)

Wendy
[email-masked]

--
*******************************************************************************
    Carol & Wendy                  *Yakko:  Early to rise
    [email-masked]	   *	    And early to bed
			           *	    Makes a man healthy
				   *        But socially dead!

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From: [email-masked] (Robin Carroll-Mann)
Date: 3 Mar 1994 04:55:33 GMT

OK, here it is, by popular demand.  This list is guaranteed to be
incomplete.  I am an amateur medieval cook, not an expert.  These are simply
some titles that I have on my shelf or have heard recommended, and some
sources for buying them.   Which ones are of interest to you depends on a
number of factors.  How comfortable are you with archaic English?  Can you
cook from recipes that give ingredients, but no quantities or cooking times?
    If you can read Chaucer in the original (with the help of a glossary),
than you can deal with the 14th and 15th century sources.  If you can read
Shakespeare, you should be ok with the 16th century ones.
    Most medieval recipes sound like your grandmother dictated them: "take
some of this and a little of that, mix them together and bake until done."
 (Actually, a common phrase is "until it be enough" which I find amusing.)
If you're not comfortable with that kind of unstructured recipe, then you
might want to check out the cookbooks which contain redacted recipes in
addition to the originals.

Hieatt, Constance and Sharon Butler, _Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for
Modern Cooks_, University of Toronto Press, 1976.
    Hieatt is a scholar and knows her stuff.  The recipes come from various
14th & 15th cent. sources.  Each recipe gives the original wording, and a
modern redaction with quantities, etc.  The ones I've cooked have been
pretty tasty.

Hieatt, Constance, and Sharon Butler, eds., _Curye on Inglysche: English
Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century_  Oxford Univ. Press.
Original recipes, extensive notes and glossary.

Renfrow, Cindy, _Take a Thousand Eggs or More_.  2 vol.  privately
published.  These are transcribed from _Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks_ --
a collection of recipe manuscripts.  Vol. 1 contains about 100 recipes:
original recipes, modern translation, and redaction provided.  Vol. 2 has
more recipes and translations, but no redactions.  There is a glossary, and
intructions for attempting your own redactions.

A BOOK TO AVOID: Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, _Fabulous Feasts_.  The first
half of the book has some good info. on food history, laws, folklore and
techniques in medieval England, but the recipes are inauthentic redactions
WITHOUT the originals, and do not identify the source.

Scully, Terence, ed., _Viander of Taillevent_.  University of Ottawa Press.
Translation of classic 14th cent. French cookbook.  I don't own this one
myself, but people I respect say it's good.  Some adapted recipes.

The above books and others are available from:
    Poison Pen Press
    627 East 8th St.
    Brooklyn, NY  11218

Another good source of reprinted historic cookbooks is:
    Falconwood Press
    193 Colonie St.
    Albany, NY  12210-2501

They have a nice selection of early 17th century English cookbooks, spiral
bound and fairly inexpensive.  Titles include:
_A True Gentlewoman's Delight_ (1653)
_The Good Huswife's Jewell_ (1596)
_On Honest Indulgence and Health_ (1475) Italian, trans. into English.

I hope this is helpful.  If you have any questions, feel free to
e-mail me, though I am *FAR* from being an expert.  I am just starting to
feel comfortable about adapting recipes myself, rather than using other
people's redactions.  It's a lot of fun.  You should incidently, be able to
get most of the above through inter-library loan, though possibly not the
Renfrow books.

Good luck!

@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@
@  Robin Carroll-Mann   |  "Mostly harmless"                    @
@  [email-masked]    |  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy @
@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@

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From: [email-masked] (Jill Rappaport)
Date: 3 Mar 1994 21:32:29 GMT

would whoever is providing someone a list of medieval cookbooks either
post that list or mail me a copy?

thank you.

jill rappaport
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Jill Rappaport)
Date: 3 Mar 1994 21:35:29 GMT

sorry guys.  i didn't realize it had been already posted.

thank you.

jill

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From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: 5 Mar 1994 01:18:04 GMT

This is based on the list of medieval cookbooks from the Miscellany that my
wife and I publish--I am afraid the bibliographic information is not very
detailed, but it is a more extensive list than posted before.

al-Baghdadi, A Baghdad Cookery Book* (1226 A.D./623 A.H.), A.J. Arberry,
tr., Islamic Culture 1939. 

Ancient Cookery* from A Collection of the Ordinances and Regulations for
the Government of the Royal Household made in Divers Reigns from King
Edward III to King William and Queen Mary also Receipts in Ancient Cookery,
printed for the Society of London Antiquaries by John Nichols, 1740. This
is early 15th century English.

Anthimus, De Observatio Ciborum, translated by Shirley Howard Weber,
published by E. J. Brill Ltd, Leiden 1924. This is a letter on the subject
of diet, written in the sixth century by a Byzantine physician to
Theoderic, King of the Franks. It includes several recipes.

Chiquart, Du Fait de Cuisine,** 1420, tr. by Elizabeth. French original
published by Terence Scully in Vallesia v. 40, pp. 101-231, 1985. 

Sir Kenelm Digby, The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened* (published
posthumously in 1669). This is slightly out of period, but it contains the
earliest collection of fermented drink recipes that we know of. 

Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century
(Including the Forme of Cury), edited by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon
Butler, Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford
University Press, 1985. Still in print as of 1988.

The English Huswife, by Gervase Markham (1615, but Mistress Marion informs
us that Markham is a notorious plagiarist, so the material is probably
somewhat earlier).

The Forme of Cury, A Roll of Ancient English Cookery,* ed. S. Pegge, 
printed for the Society of London Antiquaries by John Nichols, 1780.  This
is English c. 1390; for a more modern edition see Curye on Inglysch above.

Rudolf Grewe, An Early XIII Century Northern-European Cookbook,* in
Proceedings of A Conference on Current Research in Culinary History:
Sources, Topics, and Methods. Published by the Culinary Historians of
Boston, 1986. This is an article attempting to reconstruct the lost
original from which several surviving manuscripts, including the one we
refer to as ÒA selection from An Old Icelandic Medical Miscelleny,Ó
descend.

Constance B. Hieatt, An Ordinance of Pottage, Prospect Books, London, 1988
(15th c. English).

Kitab al Tibakhah: A Fifteenth-Century Cookbook,* Charles Perry, tr. The
translation was published in Petits Propos Culinaires #21 . The original
author is Ibn al-Mabrad or Ibn al-Mubarrad.

Kitab al-Tabikh wa-islah al-Aghdiyah al-Ma'kulat by Abu Muhammad
al-Muzaffar ibn Nasr ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. This is a tenth century
collection of cookbooks; the Arabic original has been published in Studia
Orientalia vol. 60, ed. Kaj Ohrnberg and Sahban Mroueh.  Charles Perry has
translated a few recipes from it, only one of which has been published (the
Badinjan Muhassa, in Symposium Fare, recipes from the 1981 Oxford
Symposium).

Le Menagier de Paris,** tr. Janet Hinson (Lady Mairoli Bhan); also
translated as The Goodman of Paris, Power and Coulton, tr., 1395.  The
former includes all of the cooking section of Menagier; the latter is a
translation of the whole book, but includes only selections from the
recipes.  

A Noble Boke off Cookry Ffor a Prynce Houssolde,* ed. Mrs. Alexander
Napier, 1882 (c. 1470). 

Platina, De Honesta Voluptate, Venice, L. De Aguila, 1475. Translated by E.
B. Andrews, Mallinkrodt 1967. (Both Platina and Kenelm Digby were published
as part of the ÒMallinkrodt Collection of Food Classics.Ó Reprinted by
Falconwood Press, 1989.)

Sir Hugh Platt, Delights for Ladies,* London, 1609.

A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye,* ed. Catherine Frances Frere, Cambridge, W.
Heffer and sons, Ltd., 1913 (16th century).

A Selection From An Old Icelandic Medical Miscelleny,* ed. Henning Larson,
Oslo, 1931.  For a more modern edition, see Grewe.

Pepys 1047. Published as Stere Hit Well: Medieval recipes and remedies from
Samuel Pepys's Library. Modern English version by G.A.J. Hodgett. This is a
late fifteenth century English cookbook. The modern English version is
unreliable but the book fortunately includes a facsimile of the original.

An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the Thirteenth Century,** a translation
by Charles Perry of the Arabic edition of Ambrosio Huici Miranda with the
assistance of an English translation by Elise Fleming, Stephen Bloch, Habib
ibn al-Andalusi and Janet Hinson of the Spanish translation by Ambrosio
Huici Miranda, published in full in the 5th edition of volume II of the
cookbook collection.  Referred to below as ÒAndalusian.Ó

Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books* (1430-1450), Thomas Austin Ed., Early
English Text Society, Oxford University Press, 1964.

Le Viandier (c. 1392), Taillevent. Translated by Elizabeth Bennett
[Mistress Alys Gardyner]. (partial translation)

*: Included in volume I of our cookbook collection
**: Included in volume II.

I also have or know of lots of untranslated early cookbooks--German,
Italian, Spanish, Arabic.

David Friedman
[email-masked]